The Great Exhibition opens at London's Crystal Palace
On this day · 1 May 1851
Queen Victoria opened a vast glass-and-iron hall in Hyde Park, showcasing the wonders of the industrial age to the world.
On 1 May 1851, Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in Hyde Park, London. The setting was a marvel in its own right: Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, a soaring structure of glass and iron some 1,850 feet long, raised by around 5,000 labourers in a matter of months and built around the park’s existing elm trees.
Inside waited a sprawling display of machinery, manufactures, and curiosities gathered from across the globe — a confident snapshot of the industrial age.
The public answered in force. Roughly six million visitors passed through before the doors closed in October, a figure equal to about a third of Britain’s population. The exhibition even turned a tidy profit, and Prince Albert insisted the surplus go to lasting public good: it helped found the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum.
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